


The Chance to Run Away

by zarabithia



Category: Young Justice (Cartoon)
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-11
Updated: 2014-07-11
Packaged: 2018-02-08 09:11:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,018
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1935174
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zarabithia/pseuds/zarabithia
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He's been her Sunday Night date for four years, and Artemis isn't ready to let go of that.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Chance to Run Away

There’s a picture on Kaldur’s desk of a lighthouse overlooking the sea. It’s a very small picture, in a very simple frame, but it stands out in a room that otherwise looks like a hurricane hit it.

It’s been four years, but Conner still hasn’t figured out how to put his clothes away. Never mind that he’s supposed to be completely out of the dorm in three days, because it still looks as messy as it had on the first day that M’gann had introduced Artemis to her two friends.

Artemis sits on Kaldur’s bed - the only part of the room that isn’t a total disaster and watches him pack. “It’s going to feel weird, not spending my Sunday nights with you,” she says.

Kaldur looks up from folding his jeans and gives her a smile. It reminds Artemis of the smile he gave her three years ago when she’d shown up at his door, slightly (okay, more than slightly) drunk crying about her sister getting arrested and yelling about how unfair it was that Artemis still gave a fuck when Jade had left them a long time ago.

It’s the same smile that he gave her two years ago, as they’d traded stories about M’Gann and Tula, and decided that the only good way to celebrate permanently un-requited love was cold pizza and terrible Price is Right reruns.

It’s the same smile he gave her a year ago, when she’d told him about her engagement.

"I will miss our Sunday night study sessions," Kaldur tells her. "But I will miss you on the remaining days of the week, too."

"Well, yeah, of course." Artemis rolls her eyes and thinks about teasing him for being so serious. But this close to graduation, she finds that she is going to be missing that seriousness a lot. The world’s not a big frat party anymore, after all. "I’ll miss you too," she says instead.

"I never doubted it, Artemis." Kaldur’s smile then is one that they have shared over many late night trips to Denny’s while trying to give a damn about one of the many subjects that they are never, ever going to use in the real world.

"So I guess it’s back to the lighthouse now?" Artemis asks. She nods her head towards the picture and Kaldur doesn’t need to turn his head to look, but he does.

Artemis understands that. She’s got a picture of the Cheshire cat on her own desk, after all.

"Yes. For at least the time being. It will offer me a paying job, and I can consider whether or not I wish I pursue grad school next year or go to work full time for Curry industries." Kaldur finishes zipping up his bag and Artemis bites back a sigh as he picks up the last of his bags.

"Lucky you," she says.

"I will of course make time to attend your wedding, regardless of my location," Kaldur promises.

"There isn’t going to be a wedding," Artemis tells him. She leans her head back on the back of the wall that is thin enough that she has heard exactly which sexual positions Robin and Zatanna enjoy in explicit detail while studying for Professor Palmer’s ridiculously impossible exams. "I mean, we were kind of waiting until after graduation to tell everybody, because we didn’t want to be total killjoys, but …"

She shrugs, and it’s far easier to do than it should be. It’s far easier than it had been for Wally, and that seems wrong on so many levels.

"You could not agree on future plans?" Kaldur asks, and there is no surprise or judgement in his voice.

Has there ever been, really?

"Nope. He’s still wanting to move back to Kansas and work at the lab with his uncle. And I did not work so hard on my degree so that I could is still calling my name in any direction but Kansas, so.."

"So your goals were incompatible." Kaldur’s words spell out in black and white what Artemis had struggled agonized over for months. It is both annoying and endearing.

"See, if everyone understood this as well as you do, i would be looking forward to this summer a lot more than I am. As it is, I have a mother who is going to be disappointed, a sister who is going to send a million I-told-you-sos from prison, and a niece who is going to be sad that she doesn’t get to be the flower girl."

"Mm." Kaldur glances over at the picture of the lighthouse again. "They can always use an extra hand at the lighthouse in the summer time."

"Why, Kal, are you offering me the chance to run away?"

He reaches for the lighthouse picture then, and answers her as he slips it into the bag. “Yes, I believe I am.”

It’s ridiculous and not her at all. Jade is the one who runs away, after all. She’s the one who stays behind and tries to build a decent life for herself and for her mama’s sake.

"I have a lot of people to talk to, to explain things to…" she begins, and she’s annoyed with herself for the way it sounds like an excuse.

"Your attention to your responsibilities are one of my favorite things about you, Artemis. I would never ask that to change," Kaldur tells her, and just like that, he’s accepted that she isn’t coming. He’s accepted it and the expression on his face tells her that he isn’t happy about it.

But he doesn’t push.

And god, that’s different from pretty much every experience she’s ever had with men, isn’t it? 

She watches him zip up his final bag and makes the first impulsive decision she’s ever actually made in her life.

"But that shouldn’t take too long. Save me a room at that lighthouse, okay, Kaldur?"

The smile Kaldur gives her this time is like no other one they’ve ever shared, and Artemis finds herself looking forward to a summer of finding out exactly what that smile means for both of them.


End file.
